Virtual tour of Wuhan, anyone?

Virtual guided tours are picking up steam this year. As no one can really go out and experience a real vacation due to the epidemic, many online tour companies are creating virtual tourism experiences.

One such company is the online tour company Walks, which has put together a selection of `Tours from Home’ offered by expert guides, chefs and storytellers.

But while Stephen Oddo, the CEO and founder of Walks, was happy to find a way to provide small income source to some of the company’s tour guides as well as a way to keep brand awareness high, he also saw an opportunity to do something more.

Thus was born the Spotlight Series, during which Walks is offering online tours guided by non-professional tour guides in unexpected places. The first series will be guided by Wuhan local Akim Zhou and feature “stories from the world’s most famous city.”

“I think it’s a great opportunity to popularize this city,” Zhou, who grew up in Wuhan and studied at the University of Sydney, told Skift via email. “Wuhan was not famous as the places such as Beijing or Shanghai, however it’s famous now, but not in a good way. I want my hometown to be impressive with something positive and nice, there’s plenty of beautiful things in here and I felt honoured to deliver tours so that I can tell stories that people unable to read on the news.”

The tour includes information about Wuhan’s street food culture, antique markets, the Yangtze river and its 164 lakes, as well as the city’s prestigious and historic university. It will also discuss guide Zhou’s experience living in the city of 11 million residents as it reopened.

Oddo said the idea isn’t necessarily to inspire people to travel to Wuhan once the world opens up again, but rather as a way for the company to “break out of the paradigm” of tourism and embrace a broader role as storyteller.

“I was interested in this city that all of a sudden became famous,” Oddo said. “And as someone who’s been in the travel industry my whole life, I just felt like there needed to be another version of the story as opposed to what you see right now about Wuhan.”